I read an interesting article passed along by a friend on why large corporations, despite their advantages, often fall victim to smaller upstarts with limited resources. The author, Luke Johnson, a UK private equity firm president and entrepeneur, makes a number of excellent observations. The article, which was in the Financial Times and can be reached by clicking the link, is summarized below. I think some of these observations need to be expanded upon in my blog on Corporate Politics and I will do so in subsequent posts.

Corporate diseases make large organizations less effective -- their types and varieties are listed below:

Sunk Costs Fallacy -- essentially being unable to abandon a project because it can't be admitted it was a bad idea.

Groupthink -- The inability to question the conventions of thinking that have evolved at the company.

Governance over management -- too much focus on checking the boxes rather than creating value.

Institutional Capture -- people acting in their own interests, rather than the owner's interests.

Office Politics -- Subversion of good projects to serve the needs of internal constituencies.

Failure to act as Owners -- excessive spending because it isn't the employee's money being spent.